Pete J.

I know this is likely to create a firestorm, but I am going to make a request to a number of posters. Can we please reduce the size of our signature blocks? They are a bit like snow. The first time they are interesting and fun to look at. The second time they are OK. By the end of winter, snow is no longer a thing of beauty. By the 30th time huge signature blocks are a significant annoyance. Having to scroll though a post that takes up 3/4 of a page to read one line is a bit much. Rather a bit like graffiti. I make this as a request of civility. This board has enough posts to go through without making them unnecessarily longer. Thank you.

Just arrived - Scale Motorsports FXX super upgrade. Man it is a great piece. The brake detail is just not to be believed! So much detail for an already great kit. It will generate a superb model.

Or type 82e depending on the Chassis. This one looks to be riding high enough to be a type 82e. The type 86 is four wheel drive and the 82 is not. Also know as the Kdf wagen.

Art - Bingo! REO survived to 1974 before scumming. The name lives on as a rock group - REO Speed wagon, but that hardly counts.

Nope - Not British - Two US companies.

I did a bit more research and have to change the information slightly. One of the brands died in 1975 If one is to propose a question, it would be a good thing to get the facts straight. In fact the brand name is still alive, but it is attached to something entirely irrelevant to motor vehicles.

Interesting! I was not familiar with the RMW connection. I just found this site which seems to give credence to your comments in general. http://jeff.dean.home.att.net/roundel-myth.pdf However the aircraft part of it appears to be incorrect. Rapp was in the business of designing and selling aircraft engines from the beginning. BMW came about when Rapp left the company he founded and the directors renamed the company for the location. Thus BMW started life as a aircraft engine design and manufacturing company. Great to learn something new! Thanks

Thought that might be a bit too easy. I have never seen any dissenting views on the design. Interesting. Who are the "experts" that you are suggesting? Just about every source I can find states the "prop" explanation as a definitive answer. Incidental, Saab had a twin engine aircraft front profile as its logo in the early years. A fair number of early auto makers had ties to aircraft manufacture. In WWII both BMW and Mercedes made engines for aircraft as well as Rolls Royce, Packard, Ford, and GM. Maybach engines powered numerous German tanks including the infamous Tiger I.

Here is another one for you. This may be too easy for some. The BMW logo is a graphic representation of a physical object. What is that object?

OK, I can make it a bit more specific. Who was the person who founded the two companies named after him, and what are the brand names? One is a bit tricky because it is a truck manufacture.

16/20 tag lines got me too. Too many current car questions - What a tough one? Try this - Who is the only original car maker to have two brands that survived the twentieth century named after him? Name the two brands.

Excellent question and one I suspect is as unique as the person. Should generate a lot of differant responses. For me, it is the act of creation. I was raised on a farm and always had a lot of creative/engineering/mechanical things going on. As I transitioned to a more urban life style I missed that. Model building is a highly creative diversion that satisfies that need to build/make/create something that has my unique imprint on it. I build cars because they interst me. I love the research that goes into each one and I like becoming a expert on each of my creations. Very statisfying. I also like having a skill level that I can always build on, no matter how accomplished I become. There is always that next project which is a challenge. I remember when it was a challenge to keep the glue blobs off the car. Now it is the challenge of making ever more accurate detail. I doubt that I will ever get there, but the ulimate goal is to start one of the machines up and run it through the gears. A worthy goal is one that is just out of reach. And yes, I like the satisfaction of people asking "How did you do that!!" Oh, and I also like the occational odd piece that I create just to exercise the imagination. Here is one of the stranger ones.

I have been using Gorilla glue for some time in wood working and concur. There isn't anything in modeling that I can think of that would be useful. The reason for the expansion is to force the glue into the pores of the materials being glued. If you clamp the pieces, the force created by expansion is very strong. In porous material, it works very well. Problem is that it squeezes out the of the joint and is really a challenge to clean up. Nope, not worth a darned for modeling.

Having survived two sets of fires in San Diego(last year and two years before that) I would like to lend a bit of reality to California wild fires for those who do not experience them. Although they are rough and can do a lot of damage, they are not nearly as bad as what the news makes them out to be. Most frequently, the fire fighters(God bless them!) are able to limit the damage. They have enough experience to contain them quite quickly in most cases. What makes them really bad is when the Santa Anna's are blowing. For the uninitiated those are hot dry winds blowing out of the east from the desert. Add fire and 50+mph winds and you get a fire storm. Doesn't happen often but when you get conditions like last year, and the winds blow for several days, then you have a real problem. So, having said that, damage wise, only occasionally do they do horrific damage. Comparable to other locations, we have few natural disasters on the west coast. A single hurricane can do more damage than all the wild fires and earthquakes have done in the last 20 years. Katrina did far more damage than we have suffered in the last 20 years. Now on to the stupid. Build a house on the side of a hill, in a canyon loaded with brush and a history of burning, because it has a gorgeous view and you're and idiot. No sympathy for your stupidity, even if you are a Hollywood star with a multi million dollar home. Fire does not respect wealth. Equal opportunity destroyer. Kind of like the people I see along the banks of the Mississippi each year that stand on the porch complaining that this is the 10th time in 15 years that they have been flooded out. Yea?? No kidding? Move!! Now on those occasions when a fire burns into areas that are well protected and had a bad luck of the draw, I have a lot of sympathy for those people, but that doesn't happen all that often. Fire is one of the hazards that we face here, and most of us accept it and do what we can to mitigate it's effects, just like any other form a disaster. That is what we accept when we live here. I just hate the fact that the news has to blow it all out of proportion. While on the subject, in one of the most recent earthquakes, I was literally rolling on the floor with laughter. The news teams had helicopters over the epicenter shooting "live footage" and the commentary was that they couldn't see anything. They couldn't see anything for hours. They couldn't see it because there was no damage, but boy did they have it covered!

I'm going for real on this one, based on the Borroni wheels. They look like the standard offset 3 rows with the proper adjusting screws at the base. I agree - Photos been retouched. Not uncommon an rare car photos.

My son is now twenty and has moved past modeling for now. In many respects he is like me and I expect that he will come back to the hobby at some point. It really doesn't matter if the hobby is gone by then, I have enough models accumulated for him and I to build for the rest of our combined lives. But the point is this. I started him with something I liked and almost lost him. I had to let him experiment. His first build was a car which was at Dads insistence. Kind of like "Snake Bite" He lost interest easily but he got through it. Took second as a Tamiya/con winner, which kind of set the hook. He played around with a couple of car models but never got to far with them. Tried airplanes, but couldn't hold his interest either. Then I brought home a Gundam! He had played with transformer toys since he was small and now he could build and paint his own. Man did his interest take off. We have a box of Gundams, mostly broken from playing, but I didn't much care. He was building and having a good time. Just a thought, take your child along and see where their imagination takes them in the hobby story and don't say know(unless they pick up a $200 master grade Gundam). We all want to have them share our interest. It is more important for us to share theirs. Pete J>

It depends, in my book. If the model has something to call attention to the headliner such as gull wing doors, or a T top or sunroof, then yes. If not, a coat of paint or flocking or whatever works fine. If you are doing a super detail, it is a must do item. A fully detailed car without the liner is a looser. If you are doing race cars, interior color or bare metal is the order of the day. Pete J.

Just a word about Evercoat. It use to come in metal cans, now they are plastic. In a 1:1 shop, it doesn't matter because you use it quickly, but on a modelers bench, both the catalyst and the base eventually eat the plastic container. I have an old glass model paint bottle for the catalyst and a quart canning jar for the base. Had a mess when I left the bench for a while and came back to evercoat slowly seeping across the bench like a nasty plastic blob. Lots of acetone later it was clean but it ruined a lot of good plastic in the process. Pete J.

It is just like in your full sized body shop. It is as good as the person applying it Pete J.

Ken - This is a tough one, not because of the diffuculty of the decision, which I concure with 150%, but with how to handle it. Smacking the father up side the head for what he did to his kid without causing problems for the kid. The guy is an absolute jerk. Needs to be sent to parenting school. Pete J>

I'm going with real on this one. Too many small details that are very difficult to do. Chrome frames on the inside top of the windscreen. Chromed liners inside the eyelids on the headlights. May be wrong 50/50 chance, but I'm saying real. Pete J.

Just took a look at the camera spec's and it is going to be difficult to get a good model photo with it. Fixed focus/no zoom, 85 cm fixed focal length, viewfinder camera. The best that you can do is measure the distance to from camera to model at 85 cm or 33" and shoot. The flairs are going to be a matter of luck with the a viewfinder camera. Without a through the lense viewing system(SLR or viewscreen) you never quite get the exact view that the lens transmits to the image sensor. You just have to shoot a lot of photos from slightly differant angles and then pick the best. Kind of tough when you are working with an older piece. If you are considering a newer camera and you want to shoot better pictures, I would make sure that I had four things. Through the lense viewing(there are not a lot of them out there that don't have this now), macro setting good down to about 18 or less inches, and a good zoom, and last the ablity to set the white balance manually. With the advance of technology, there are a lot of pocket cameras that do this and they are not super espensive. Bottom of the line with these features run about $140 and really good ones are $250. Stay with name brands like Sony, Cannon, Nikon as they have the best lens. Megapixles are not as important as good optics. Sorry, I got a little off track with the recomendation, but the limits of the camera you have are going to make it difficult to do what you want. The camera as it stands, is comparable to the the quality of a good disposable. Not really good for model shooting. Sorry! Pete J.

Two words - Zap Polyzap. It is designed for RC car lexan bodies and does not fog. It is a bit thicker and slower to dry but the advantages make it worth having in your arsenal of glues. You can use a mix 50/50 91% alcohol and distilled water to get the haze off. Don't use the 100% alcohol. It will take the chrome off. Pete J.

First of all, what kind of camera are you using? To start with, check to see if you have a macro setting on your camera. That allows you to focus up close. Next see if you have the ablity to freeze the focus. Most cameras will let you do this by partially pushing the shutter button. You can then take a flat piece of board the same distance from your model and focus on that. Freeze the focus and then center your model. Then trigger the shutter for an infocus photo. The flairs are an issue of lighting and you will get that outside. Inspite of the overcast, shooting outside is not generally a good idea. You really can't control the lighting well enough. Pete

Actually copper is a very good choice. First it is easy to anneal. As you work it it hardens and needs to be heated and re-softened. It also solders very nicely and paint sticks to is very well. Many high end craftsmen us the metal almost exclusively. Pete J.